Forgot my dentist appointment again!

[Bryan Hutchinson]

Okay, this is it, finally, I am going to tell you like it is! Don't listen to me, read me or take any of my advice, because, and this hurts to admit, I forgot my dentist appointment this morning for the upteenth time! It's on my calendar, in my iphone alarms, I even have the nice little note from the dental assistant right here on my desk! What the what?

Ah, but that drill won't be in my mouth today! Yeah, I rock!

Okay, I am calling the dentist office now...

[DANA]

As an ADDer who literally DETESTS going to the dentist, what are the possibilities that you subconsciously did NOT want to go to the dentist and this is the main reason of missing the appointment? What if this has nothing to do with ADHD, but everything to do with disliking the dental experience of having a loud drill that causes excruciating pain in your mouth?

The power of the subconscious mind is so fascinating! According to author, Bonnie Palmer, who wrote an article titled THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND, she states, "The conscious mind is where short term memory exists and provides the ability to reason. When someone takes in information, it is here that they decide whether or not it is true."

Although, I am not a psychiatrist or an expert on the subconscious mind, my own theory is that your conscious mind came to the conclusion that going to the dentist is very unpleasant for you. Therefore, once this negative message was sent to your subconscious mind, your subconscious mind accepted the negative message as TRUE (YES! GOING TO THE DENTIST IS VERY PAINFUL & UNPLEASANT!), then your subconscious stored this thought and blocked your conscious memory to recall the dental appointment.

Personally, I think that your subconscious mind reasoned with COMPLETE ACCURACY that going to the dentist is usually very, very painful. This can definitely explain why I have missed more dental appointments than I can count, why I impulsively bit the dentist so hard (as a child) that the dentist literally bleed and why I limit my dental visits!

[Bryan Hutchinson]

Nah, Dana, I forget too many types of appointments for it to be about the pain, although I am glad I didn't have the drill in my mouth today, I do need the appointment and I am actually quite upset about missing it. There's no subconscious stuff at work here, not with this. Either way, I was just being funny earlier :-)) or at least, trying to be. lol

[NerdyMommy]

I did one better, Bryan... my two youngest kids had appointments for their annual checkups a couple weeks ago. I knew that the appointments were coming up soon, but I didn't have it written down anywhere that I could find. So I kept telling myself to call and find out.

Have I ever mentioned how lazy I am about checking my voicemail on my home phone? Sometimes days go by...

So I come home from work on Tuesday, and decide to check my voice mail. One of the messages is from the doctor's office, confirming my kids appointment. When the receptionist starting talking on the message, I thought, "Great! Now I don't have to call to find out when the appointment is".... until she got to the part "on Tuesday at 2:30pm".

Crap.

If I had only checked my voicemail the night before.... or called the office when I knew the appointment was coming up... or wrote it down somewhere to begin with! Gotta love it!

BTW... I still haven't called yet to reschedule the appointments... it's on my list, I swear!!!

[Bryan Hutchinson]

I know, I know NM! Jeeze... doesn't it just... well, you know what I mean. I had it set up on my phone with an alarm and it went off two days before as I expected, then I forgot to reset it for the day before etc... etc... too much work, don't ya think?

[Miss K]

HATE it when stuff like that happens!

I actually turned in a court filing without an important piece on Friday and have to go fix it on Monday. I had put together a folder of docs to pass back and forth with my boss while we were working on this, because there were a lot of pieces and I needed to keep them together and in order because we are BOTH ADHDers and I knew what would work to keep us on the straight and narrow. Every time I passed it back to him for review though, I took that piece out because I had to make sure he didn't accidentally have it under something else he was writing on, and ruin the carbon copy. So he would hand the folder back, and I would put it back in...in and out like this all afternoon...and I forgot to finally put it back in because we were in a hurry to get it filed.

I should have written a note to lay over my keys that said "did you put the carbon copy back in" but I didn't...I friggin' HATE missing crap like that! I told him, and he understands why it happened, and appreciated my attempt to preserve the document...and I'll go turn it in Monday but...grrr! I even drove like a race car driver to get to the court one minute before they closed.

I have done that too Brian...set all my alarms and everything and written notes, and had five reminders...and turn each one off going "oh yeah, I have to go to that thing" and then...within 30 seconds of the last reminder, made another plan because I forgot about the first one and missed the appointment/movie/work session/friend date...because of my "special" brain...

Totally crazymaking!

[Jenny01]

Too funny interesting, as I have been told I'm worse than a little kid @ the dentist. I feel like since I've tried to figure this out, (why I might snort, cry or hyperventilate), maybe it has something to do with not really being able to KNOW what's going on, feeling like they're scraping is rattlin in my brain, I don't really know, but I don't like 'em and miss those appts constantly! Blah!

[Janice Adamson]

One of my doctor's has a great system... he has his receptionist call me the day before the appt. (and sometimes two days in a row before the appt.) lol! That was because of the one time I forgot to set my alarm. I often forget dates and although I have three daytimers, I can never seem to do better than to just find the nearest scrap paper or newspaper to write the info on, which almost always gets lost or discarded. I'm also really good at forgetting my rent, so I write cheques for the whole year. But my lease renewal was for this month, which meant a whole new year of cheques... they called me two days ago reminding me sternly that the cheque for this month must be in by Friday. Except now I can't locate even one of my three cheque books...

[Bryan Hutchinson]

Hrmmmmmm Janice, I wonder if I could get the receptionist to call me? Doubt it, but wouldn't hurt to ask. However, I might forget 5 minutes after she calls :) lol Seriously, it is worth a shot!